State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

We have mentioned the efforts of making telecom infrastructure green many times. The goal is to expand mobile communication to areas not served by electrical grids, as well as to reduce operating expenses and environmental impact. Vodafone Qatar and Alcatel-Lucent announced the deployment of the first hybrid powered Base Station in Qatar, using an integration of solar and wind energy. Vodafone and other companies intend to learn from these trial sites and plans to apply these techniques all over the world.

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Have a great idea and the credentials to get it done but need resources or partnership with a large organization? Here’s an offer which may help. As part of a program called TechQuest, Alcatel-Lucent is seeking applications from wireless / mobile technology experts for applications in the areas of public safety, entertainment, eHealthcare and eLearning. This program, TechQuest, is a match maker between companies and innovators. This program is managed by an organization called MTBC in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. It is a good model for telecom companies to attract expert innovators and researchers. Here’s how the program works:

Through TechQuest, small tech companies, university researchers, and industry technologists, the Innovation Providers, have an opportunity to present their technology-based ideas and business plans to a major company, an Innovation Seeker, from the Dallas/Ft.Worth area. Those connections may result in technology licensing, funding, a customer/supplier relationship or a strategic partnership.

Here’s the information about this TechQuest program from Alcatel-Lucent. More information about the process and other TechQuest programs is provided at the MTBC site. Note that the Innovation Providers don’t have to be from Dallas area.

Problem Statement
The bandwidth of mobile uplinks and downlinks as well as data latency parameters promise to be much improved over currently available 3G services with the advent of LTE and 4G wireless broadband technologies. Alcatel-Lucent is seeking applications and services that will benefit from this improved connectivity especially in these key areas:

• Public Safety
• Media and Entertainment
• eHealthcare
• eLearning

Background Information:
Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Fourth Generation wireless networks (4G) will provide much higher data rates for mobile devices and applications than existing solutions. The LTE specification is defined and telecommunications equipment vendors are already executing contracts with carriers to deploy LTE gear. The definition of 4G is a bit more nebulous as standards are still being defined; however 4G has objectives of 100Mbits/s bandwidth between any two points in the world (although much higher rates have been lab tested) and support of IPv6.

More information on LTE specifications can be found at www.3gpp.org/article/lte.

Alcatel-Lucent today announced that Nayatel is preparing to deploy the first gigabit passive optical network (GPON) in Pakistan. This blazing fast network will provide its customers with the most advanced triple-play services – such as high-definition television, innovative telephony services and ultraband Internet access. Nayatel’s Pakistani customers can expect the new network to be up and running by the end of 2009. Wahaj us Siraj, CEO, Nayatel said:

In 2005, Nayatel was the first operator to deploy a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network solution in South Asia, and today we have once again pioneered the Pakistani market by becoming the first adopter of GPON technology in the country.

With Alcatel-Lucent’s industry-leading GPON solution, we will be able to offer our customers a whole new range of next-generation, ultraband applications that leverage our network’s true gigabit speeds. All in all, we will soon be able to offer our customers a service experience which was once only dreamed in this part of the world.

“Nayatel’s GPON deployment in Pakistan, will enable their end-users to truly experience the power of next-generation triple-play services,” said Vincenzo Nesci, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s business in the Middle East and Africa. “This contract highlights Nayatel’s continuous confidence in our solutions and expertise,” he adds.

According to the latest MRG IPTV Market Leaders report , Alcatel-Lucent dominates the global IPTV Access market with a 41% market share (four times the market share of its nearest competitor). In its report, MRG confirms that Alcatel-Lucent is the only vendor focusing on all four (geographic) regions, and is deployed in 10 out of the top 25 IPTV service providers worldwide. From an FTTH perspective, Alcatel-Lucent has more than 90 fiber deployments ongoing worldwide, with a mix of GPON and point-to-point roll-outs.

Alcatel-Lucent has signed a contract worth USD 52.87 million with China Mobile Pakistan Limited (CMPak), a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Mobile, to expand its existing GSM/EDGE network. The expansion will allow CMPak to provide enhanced commercial services in northern Pakistan by the end of the first quarter of 2009. Alcatel-Lucent will enable CMPak to increase its network capacity and coverage, bringing enhanced mobile services to a greater number of people in the region and improving the end-user experience.

Alcatel-Lucent will have the full responsibility for building the network, providing design, deployment and integration services. The company will also provide project management and maintenance services to help CMPak lower its network operational costs. This is consisent with what I wrote a few days ago about outsourccing from mobile companies to cut costs.

Alcatel-Lucent press release adds:

Alcatel-Lucent, through its flagship company in China Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell will supply CMPak with its industry-leading multi-standard GSM/EDGE radio access solution including its latest Base Station Controller platform and TWIN transceivers, along with microwave transport solutions for enhancing interconnection among base stations and providing mobile traffic backhauling capabilities. Alcatel-Lucent will also provide a comprehensive suite of network integration services such as network optimization, system support and general project management, to enable CMPak to introduce new technologies and services in the future.

There is much to hear these days that the latest developments in the LTE technology will leave behind WiMAX. In a broader perspective, the situation is different. The article below from Orange Business Live discusses it.

Although the WiMAX vendor community has been pushing the notion that 2009 is the year of WiMAX, the recession coupled with an aggressive push towards mobile broadband’s LTE (long term evolution) could put the technology’s wider uptake in jeopardy. Nortel, for instance, has left the WiMAX market and Alcatel-Lucent has diverted R&D spend from WiMAX to LTE, although it seems committed to pushing WiMAX and cites this shift as being down to WiMAX now now being productised.

“LTE is our future,” said GSMA chief executive Rob Conway at the recent Mobile World Congress. “You can talk about WiMAX if you want, but it is a sideshow to this main event.”

Scorching words, but with analyst firm ABI Research predicting WiMAX subscriber revenue growth of more than 4,500% this year, the technology is far from over and done with. As ABI principal analyst, Philip Solis, points out; “To ignore a growth market in a down economy would be a mistake.”

Other analysts agree and point out that mobile WiMAX already has commercial deployments while LTE lags behind. Daryl Schoolar, at In-Stat, thinks WiMAX and LTE will take different paths. “Most of the operators looking to deploy WiMAX come to it from the fixed network space,” he says. “Most of the early operators supporting LTE come from the mobile space. These operators want to use LTE to increase capacity and peak rates on their existing mobile networks.”

Instead of LTE being a threat to WiMAX, Schoolar thinks HSPA may well turn out to be WiMAX’s true competitor. From an enterprise point-of-view the battle being teed-up in the vendor industry is divisive and, in many respects, counter-productive. End-users don’t care about the method, only the ease-of-use it offers and the bandwidth it provides. From that perspective, WiMAX is here now and can be used whereas LTE remains a concept for the future with most operators unlikely to be deploy it until 2011 or 2012.

[Via Orange Business Live]

Alcatel-Lucent is one of the major infrastructure vendors in telecommunication Industry. Alcatel has supplied WiMAX related gear to Mobilink Infinity for its first commercial deployment in Karachi this October. Some of you may have heard that Alcatel-Lucent has supplied a comprehensive WiMAX Rev-e solution including both fixed and nomadic terminal devices from various CPE partners.

The Alcatel-Lucent WiMAX network leverages existing sites and equipment in Mobilink’s GSM network, helping to optimize deployment economics. In WiMAX area, Alcatel-Lucent has 34 commercial contracts and it is engaged in 70 trials going on around the world.

However, it may not be well known Alcatel handset division was sold to a Chinese company few years ago and it is not part of Alcatel-Lucent any more. Alcatel mobile phone handsets are available in Pakistan. Here is some pricing information from the official dealer in Pakistan. Products pictures and specifications are available at Alcatel Pakistan web site.

Here is the list of Alcatel Mobile Phones collection 2008 with Prices.
OT-S211  Rs.2,750
OT-S621  Rs.6,200
OT-V770  Rs.8,700